paul_marcianofandomcom-20200215-history
Yoruba phonology
The three possible syllable structures of Yoruba are consonant+vowel (CV), vowel alone (V), and syllabic nasal (N). Every syllable bears one of the three tones: high , mid (generally left unmarked), and low . The sentence n̄ ò lọ (I didn't go) provides examples of the three syllable types: *n̄ — — I'' *ò — — ''not (negation) *lọ — — to go Vowels Standard Yoruba has seven oral and five nasal vowels. There are no diphthongs in Yoruba; sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables. Dialects differ in the number of vowels they have; see above. * In some cases, the phonetic realization of these vowels is noticeably different from what the symbol suggests: ** The oral is close front , and the nasal varies between close front and near-close front .Bamgboṣe (1969:166) ** The oral is close back , and the nasal varies between close near-back , close back , near-close near-back and near-close back . ** The oral are close-mid , ]}}, and do not have nasal counterparts. ** The oral is open-mid , and the nasal varies between mid and open-mid . ** The oral is near-open , and the nasal varies between open-mid and near-open . ** The oral is central . The status of a fifth nasal vowel, , is controversial. Although the sound occurs in speech, several authors have argued it to be not phonemically contrastive; often, it is in free variation with .Notably, Ayọ Bamgboṣe (1966:8). Orthographically, nasal vowels are normally represented by an oral vowel symbol followed by ( , , , ), except in case of the allophone of (see below) preceding a nasal vowel: inú 'inside, belly' is actually pronounced .Abraham, in his Dictionary of Modern Yoruba, deviates from this by explicitly indicating the nasality of the vowel; thus, inú is found under inún, etc. Consonants The voiceless plosives and are slightly aspirated; in some Yoruba varieties, and are more dental. The rhotic consonant is realized as a flap or, in some varieties (notably Lagos Yoruba), as the alveolar approximant . Like many other languages of the region, Yoruba has the voiceless and voiced labial–velar stops and : pápá 'field', 'all'. Notably, it lacks the common voiceless bilabial stop so is written as . Yoruba also lacks a phoneme ; the letter is used for the sound in the orthography, but strictly speaking, it refers to an allophone of immediately preceding a nasal vowel. There is also a syllabic nasal, which forms a syllable nucleus by itself. When it precedes a vowel, it is a velar nasal : n ò lọ 'I didn't go'. In other cases, its place of articulation is homorganic with the following consonant: ó ń lọ 'he is going', ó ń fò 'he is jumping'. Tone Yoruba is a tonal language with three level tones: high, low, and mid (the default tone.Several authors have argued that the mid-tone is not specified underlyingly but rather is assigned by a default rule (Pulleyblank 1986, Fọlarin 1987, Akinlabi 1985): rí 'see' aṣọ 'clothing' → ráṣọ 'see clothing', contrasted with rí 'see' ọ̀bẹ 'knife' → rọ́!bẹ 'see a knife' In the first example, the final vowel of the verb rí is deleted but its high tone easily attaches to the first syllable of aṣọ, the mid tone of which disappears without a trace. In the second example, the Low tone of the first syllable of ọ̀bẹ is not as easily deleted; it causes a downstep (marked by , a lowering of subsequent tones. The ease with which the Mid tone gives way is attributed to it not being specified underlyingly. Cf. Bamgboṣe 1966:9 (who calls the downstep effect 'the assimilated low tone').) Every syllable must have at least one tone; a syllable containing a long vowel can have two tones. Contour tones (i.e. rising or falling tone melodies) are usually analysed as separate tones occurring on adjacent tone bearing units (morae) and thus have no phonemic status.Cf. Bamgboṣe 1966:6: The so-called glides … are treated in this system as separate tones occurring on a sequence of two syllables. Tones are marked by use of the acute accent for high tone ( , ), the grave accent for low tone ( , ); Mid is unmarked, except on syllabic nasals where it is indicated using a macron ( , ); see below). Examples: * H: ó bẹ́ bɛ́ 'he jumped'; síbí síbí 'spoon' * M: ó bẹ bɛ̄ 'he is forward'; ara āɾā 'body' * L: ó bẹ̀ bɛ̀ 'he asks for pardon'; ọ̀kọ̀ ɔ̀kɔ̀ 'spear'. Tonality effects and computer-coded documents Written Yoruba includes diacritical marks not available on conventional computer keyboards, requiring some adaptations. In particular, the use of the subdots and tone marks are not represented, so many Yoruba documents simply omit them. Asubiaro Toluwase, in his 2014 paper, points out that the use of these diacritics can affect the retrieval of Yoruba documents by popular search engines. Therefore, their omission can have a significant impact on online research. Assimilation and elision When a word precedes another word beginning with a vowel, assimilation or deletion ('elision') of one of the vowels often takes place.See Bamgboṣe 1965a for more details. See also Ward 1952:123–133 ('Chapter XI: Abbreviations and Elisions'). In fact, since syllables in Yoruba normally end in a vowel, and most nouns start with one, it is a very common phenomenon, and it is absent only in very slow, unnatural speech. The orthography here follows speech in that word divisions are normally not indicated in words that are contracted as a result of assimilation or elision: ra ẹja → rẹja 'buy fish'. Sometimes however, authors may choose to use an inverted comma to indicate an elided vowel as in ní ilé → n'ílé 'in the house'. Long vowels within words usually signal that a consonant has been elided word-internally. In such cases, the tone of the elided vowel is retained: àdìrò → ààrò 'hearth'; koríko → koóko 'grass'; òtító → òótó 'truth'. References External links * Category:Language phonologies